Тips to master Photoshop quickly

Allie Hawkins31 Oct at 14:10

Photoshop is easily the most powerful image-editing tool nowadays. Whether you are a web- or graphic designer, an amateur or professional photographer, the software can be of great help to you once you get over the initial ‘How to master Photoshop?’ confusion. Take your time and remember that practice makes perfect. In this article we’ll share some of our favorite Photoshop tips and tricks or rather Photoshop tips for beginners. Hope you can use them as basis for further learning using various Photoshop tutorials.

1. Apply a filter

The easiest way to get a certain effect is to apply a filter or stack a couple of them together. Before applying a filter change your image to 8 bit, go to Image > Mode > 8 bits/ channel. Now, select a layer and go to Filter > Filter Gallery, here you can choose the one you need. Once you are more comfortable with Photoshop, make sure to use manual options and controls to create similar effects – you will get to learn a lot more that way.

2. Add Sharpness

Sharpness adds details to your image, and there are various ways to do it in Photoshop.

On the top layer go to Filter > Other > High Pass, choose a value and click OK.

On the top layer change the blending mode to Overlay.

Adjust the opacity of the layer.

Please note that Facebook compresses images and adds more details to them. So if you are planning to post photos on this website, don’t overdo it – your photos might look a bit too edgy.

3. Enhance colors

Do you know the difference between saturation and vibrance? Understanding it is essential for working with colors. While the former intensifies all colors equally, the latter does it selectively – for weaker colors, so it works best for portraits.

Both options are available in ‘Image’ > ‘Adjustments’ menu.

4. Add a vignette

A vignette basically darkens edges of your frame. This technique is useful if you want to draw attention to the subject in the center of the picture.

5. Use shortcuts

Apart from saving you time and effort, keyboard shortcuts make your workflow smooth. Here are some of the most commonly used key combinations:

B – paintbrush tool;

D – sets the default color for foreground/background;

E – eraser tool;

V – move tool;

Ctrl+j – duplicates the selected layer;

Space bar – temporary hand key.

If you use other actions more often, do try to figure out their shortcuts – it is worth it.

Photoshop is certainly the place to unleash your creativity

You can spend hours editing a single image – experimenting with various settings and effects can be so much fun. However what if you have to batch edit images, i.e. you have a lot of pictures to process in the quickest time possible? In this case, a bulk image editor will be of better help to you. PhotoBulk is a batch image editor that enables you to resize, optimize, rename and edit multiple images in one go. You do not have to spend hours going through your images one-by-one.